Over the last 10 years, digital cameras have changed so rapidly and introduced with new features so dramatically that the number of megapixels is no longer an acceptable indication of camera quality. Digital camera buyers will rejoice in the improvements and number of new features that digital cameras now offer.

Unless your first digital camera is an economy model with no adjustable features, the range of control settings on oiler can seem quite daunting. In this section we examine the controls that you are likely come across on your digital camera, and discuss what they can do for you when you are composing and taking your images.

SETTING CONTROLS

If you have used traditional film cameras before, then you will be familiar with most of the setting controls available on digital equipment.

However, if you are completely new to photography, and want to do more than just produce the most standard of images, then read on…

Creative control

If you want to produce something a little different like to experiment and would love to explore your artistic abilities, then getting to grips with the settings controls on your digital camera will not only be vital, but also potentially a lot of fun! There is a great deal more to most digital cameras than the automatic mode that comes as standard.

But what do these various digital camera settings control? Here is a brief explanation of what each of them does.

Exposure: With manual exposure you can control the amount of light that is allowed to reach the image sensor – this will determine how light or dark your photograph will be once it has been taken. The exposure of your image is controlled by a combination of the aperture size and the shutter speed of the camera.

Focus: With manual focus, you can choose which object or area of your subject you would like to be in sharpest focus. Good focus takes a lot of practice to perfect, but will repay the effort involved with more rewarding photographs.

Aperture: The aperture is a small hole behind the lens through which the picture is taken. The size of the hole is varied by manual or automatic adjustment to allow more or less light in, as needed. Its diameter is measured by what is known as an “F-spot”.

Shutter speed: The time that the shutter remains open for is the shutter speed. The longer the shutter is open the more light is allowed in, so for low light conditions, it is left open for longer.

White balance: You can use the white balance setting to control the light that you are using to illuminate your subject and improve the colors in your image.

ISO speed: This feature measures the camera’s light sensitivity. Usually the feature is self-adjusting, so you do not need to worry about correcting what is a very delicate balance in your camera.

COMPOSING IMAGES

There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to composition. There are, however, several general principals which can help take you from being an outright novice to having enough experience to go your own way

Horses for courses

The very first thing to consider is why you are taking your picture. Is it to record an event such as wedding? If so, the odds are that you will be disturbing copies to family members, in which case the recipients will expect to see photographs in the usual format. However, if your images are going to be used in some sort of publication, you may well need to compose your shots to fit in with a “house style”. In this case, care must be taken to learn exactly what this entails before you begin taking photographs, as many publishers often have very different requirements.

When the final use of your images is not dictated by other people, you can clearly do whatever you want in terms of their composition. This is where you can test your creativity, and in doing so, have a lot of fun. The facility to take and delete photos at will makes digital cameras particularly suited to this approach – you can experiment to your heart’s content without having to worry about throwing away lots of expensive film.

Grabbing attention

To make your images stand out from the crowd, you need to catch the viewer’s attention. You can do this in many ways: by using dramatic colors; by choosing an eye catching subject; or by framing the subject itself in an unusual or visually stimulating way.

Background issues

When you are working out your next shot take a close look at the way the major elements are going to appear in the resulting image before going too far. Strong lines can make or ruin a photograph, depending on how they are used. If you are working outdoors on scenery views, vertical lines can extend from things such as trees, lamp posts or buildings, and horizontal lines can come from horizons, roads, bridges, and so on. If, however, you are working on close-up shots, you need to be a little more careful about objects that you might not otherwise notice until you are back at your computer.

Staying on the level

Sooner or later you might want to take some photographs of large expanses of water – rivers, lakes or the ocean. It is one of the unwritten rules of artistry that things that appear level in nature should be portrayed level in pictures and photographs. When you have a subject that you want to highlight without being obvious about it, you can play all sorts of visual tricks. For instance, you can use other parts of the scene to lead the eye to your intended element. Roads, tracks, rivers and hedge have all been used to good effect many, many times, so if you can come up with new and exciting ways of doing this, your pictures will score lots of extra points from onlookers!

Using space

Once you have got your subject in place and decided on the other important features, it is important to check out the empty spaces in your image. Used incorrectly, they can ruin your picture, but used property, blank areas can really enhance the message you are trying to convey. For example, if a racing car is entering a long straight, and you want the viewer to see that there is nothing up ahead, show lots of track.

Similarly, any other attempt to indicate motion over distance-perhaps images of canoeists, cyclists, aero planes, trains and automobiles – can all be improved in this way. If you have no reason to show a large empty area then find some way of filling it – skies can have clouds and fields can be populated by livestock. No-one need know that these things were all added too much foreground in later using your image manipulation software.

Finding an angle

Another way of exploring your creative side is to make your subject more interesting by presenting it from unusual angles. Rather than taking a portrait from straight ahead, for example, use a chair or step ladder to get above your subject or crouch down below it. This will immediately make the picture more intrinsically interesting.

If you are going to take a photograph of a tall narrow subject such as a skyscraper or a pine tree, or a low, wide vista like an open landscape, then it is a good idea to match the aspect ratio of the resulting image to the subject. This is the ratio of the width of a picture to its height. For example, when a picture has an aspect ratio of 1:1, it is square, but at 2:1 it is twice as wide as it is tall in other words, it helps to make the shape of the picture fit the shape of the subject.

Visual checks

Once you have got your layout and angles sorted out, it is important to check how your subject shows up with respect to the background – if their colors are similar, it may well be that you cannot distinguish one from the other. If so, this photograph will be a wasted effort, unless you can rearrange your angle, the lighting or the depth of the field, to make them stand apart.

Balancing acts

Having good visual balance in an image simply means that all the elements in it are well distributed so that it does not look lop-sided, or top – or bottom- heavy. While there are likely to be times when you will want to do this deliberately (such as adding empty space to convey motion), most of the time you will need to be taking balance into account.

Losing your balance

Imbalance can be caused by many things other than object distribution – for instance, a predominance of strong colors on one side of your image can make the other side look dull and empty. Likewise, deep shadows can throw an otherwise well-composed image off balance. If this is the case, you will either need to wait for the light to change naturally, or you will require in-fill from another source, such as a flash gun or electric lamps.

FOCUS

Getting the focus right is one of the most basic, but most difficult operations in photography. Not only do you need the right lens in place, but there are a whole host of other factors to keep in mind.

Staying in focus: There are two kinds of focus: physical and virtual. Physical focus is achieved using adjustments in the lens position, whereas virtual focus is performed by software in the camera’s processor.

Fixed focus budget cameras: Many budget cameras have no facility for focus adjustment – they do a reasonable job so long as the subject is not too close or too far away. Due to their low price and acceptable performance, disposable film cameras have become very popular in recent years.

Auto focus: Once you move up from the budget sector, just about every digital camera has the provision for auto focus. This is a facility where the camera senses how far away the subject is and sets the focus accordingly. Some of the better cameras allow you to see the focus point, whereas cheaper models will only pick up on whatever is in the centre of the image.

Manual focus: If your camera has a manual focus facility, it allows you to disable the camera’s auto focus and take full control of matters. For a start, you can decide for yourself exactly where the focus point is going to be. It is not until you have mastered the art of getting really crisp edges to your subjects that you can start to exploit the depth of field for full dramatic effect.

EXPOSURE

It is clearly viral to make sure that your photographs are not too dark or too light; this is determined by what is known as the image’s “exposure”. When an image receives too much light it is said to be over-exposed, if an image has too much light in it and becomes over¬exposed this results in a loss of color. The end result is normally a photograph that depending on the extent of the over-exposure, may seem to be composed entirely of a series of light greys and whites. Conversely, too little light will produce a dark feel to the image; this is known as under-exposure.

Seeing the light

The actual amount of light that is allowed into the camera and onto the sensor is controlled by two things – the size of the aperture and the amount of time that the shutter is open. When the exposure is being controlled by the camera, all the shutter speed and aperture settings are determined automatically. The camera’s processor calculates the correct settings by measuring the scene’s light levels via a special light-petering sensor. Just how accurately the exposure is determined will depend on many things, but the most important factor is which part of the scene is measured. Most cameras try to account for the fact that the sky is very bright, and so they bias the readings towards the bottom of the picture, but usually give priority to the middle of the scene, on the basis that this is the most likely position for your main subject.

If you are in doubt about how well the automatic exposure setting on your camera is functioning, many models offer an exposure bracketing facility, in which a series of pictures are taken, each with a slightly different exposure. You can then look through them and choose the best image, according to your preferred exposure.

LIGHT

One of the most challenging things to get right in digital photography is the light. Not only it is important to get this right for the overall scone, but also for the shadows and detail features in your images.

Light temperatures

Photographers often talk about light in terms of its temperature. Light that is biased towards the red end of the spectrum is said to be warmer, whereas that which is shifted towards the blue end is said to be cooler. For example, household electric lights are redder than daylight which is said to be cooler due to its blue content.

Exposures and light

When photographs are taken in low light conditions, it is necessary to use longer exposure times to capture the maximum amount of available light. Under these circumstances it is vital that the camera is held steady; or else severe blurring will occur. A tripod is the usual answer, but in the absence of one, you may be able to find a stable surface upon which you can rest the camera. If this is the case, it is a good idea to use the self-timer to trigger the actual shot.

Flash photography

All except the most basic of digital cameras have a built-in flash. Unfortunately, it is only when you get to the more expensive models that there is the facility to directly control an external flash gun. However, some of the in-built units do have several modes. The default setting is the automatic mode, in which the camera adjusts itself to deal with the ambient light conditions. This can usually be turned on and off very easily to suit the occasion. It is important to remember that the flash needs to recharge between depending on the circumstances, this can take more than 10 seconds on a mid-range camera.

PROBLEMS WITH “RED EYE”

Anyone who has ever taken a flash photograph of a friend or relative will be familiar with the dreaded problem of “red eye”. Unfortunately, this common condition occurs just as much in digital photography as with film, but it can be avoided.

Red eye mode

When light strikes the eye, a certain amount of it gets reflected back towards the camera – and in doing so it gets filtered by the internal structures of the machine. In the case of eyes that are adapted for use in daylight, this reflected light shows up as red, whereas in animals whose eyes have adapted to being able to see at night the reflections may be other colors – such as green in dogs, for example.

The red eye mode available on many digital cameras gets around this problem by giving the eye an initial burst of light, before producing a second flash while it actually takes the picture. The first burst of light causes the iris to close partially, which blocks most of the red light from being seen by the camera.

One thing to take into consideration is that this contraction of the eye can make the person being photographed look less attractive in the resultant image, so if this worries you, do not use the red eye flash mode; instead, remove the red color in the eyes of the subject by using your image manipulation software on the finished photograph.

There is a further mode now commonly used to control how the flash on digital cameras operates to reduce red eye. This is the “flash synch”, and it has two settings, which are known as the “1st and 2nd curtains”. In the “1st curtain” mode, the flash is fired at the beginning of the shutter opening, whereas in the “2nd curtains” mode it is fired just before the shutter closes.

ADJUSTING WHITE BALANCE

The “White balance” facility on digital cameras is designed to counter color “temperatures” and to standardize colors, through several different modes.

Auto: In auto mode, the camera deals with any color balance changes itself

Daylight or sunny: This mode is the best choice when photographing in sunny outdoor locations.

Incandescent or tungsten: This mode is the best under incandescent lighting.

Fluorescent & fluorescent H: These modes are for use under fluorescent lighting.

Cloudy: The best choice when photographing in cloudy conditions.

Flash: The best choice for flash photography.

REVIEWING & DELETING IMAGES

Being able to review and delete pictures on the LCD screen of your camera is one of the greatest advantages of digital photography. Depending on how your camera is configured, you can either get quick review lasting a few seconds each time you take a shot, or you can set it so that you can take as long as you like.

Choosing which images to keep

I review my images firstly to check that the subjects are all in frame. Then I look for any other objects that might have unintentionally ended up in the shot – either in front of, or behind, my main targets. If I am satisfied at this point, I then use the review zoom button to dose in on the main parts of die image Next. I examine the edges of my subject for sharpness. If all is still satisfactory, I then look at the shadows, and check to see if I can make out sufficient detail. The other things I check for depend on the situation; for example, if I am photographing 3 butterflies, I might have managed to get all the technical details right, but the butterfly might have closed sits wings or shifted position as the shutter closed. In this case I will try to re-shoot the linage following the same procedure. The golden rule is: NEVER be too hasty with the delete button!

CAMERA MODES

Digital cameras offer several different modes to facilitate many different kinds of photography. As A rule, the more you are able to spend on your camera, the more modes you will enjoy.

Close-up or macro photography

Macro photography is the technical name given to what is more widely known as close-tip photography. The subject matter for close-ups is irrelevant – the choice is entirely your own! Many people like to take pictures of natural items in the countryside.

The right camera

If you have a fixed focus camera, forget it – macro photography will be out of your reach until you obtain more suitable equipment. If you have a mid-range digital camera, you may well have a macro mode, in which case you can make a start in this fascinating field of photography. If you are lucky enough to have a high-end camera, while you may not already own a specialist macro lens, there will be several available to suit your model.

Unless you have one of these, you will soon find that there are real limitations to what you can and cannot achieve. Macro mode on a mid-range digital camera will allow you to capture images from distances of around 10cm (4in) up to about 50cm (20in).

Macro and compacts

Personally, I find that when I use a compact camera, I get the best results when I use the highest resolution setting at distances of around 50cm (20in) than I do when I try to shoot closer up. One of the best things about macro photography is that you can experiment endlessly the more things you try, the more you will learn, and this on its own may make the exercise worthwhile for you.

Portrait mode

Portrait mode sets the camera up to take images where the subject is in focus, and the background is blurred.

Self-timer mode

The self-timer allows you to take the picture and be in it at the same time. Most digital cameras have this facility. When set to this mode, you simply line the camera up, press the shutter release button, and get into position. The camera will usually beep quietly until it takes the shot.

Auto mode

In the Auto mode, as you would expect, most of the settings are controlled automatically by the digital camera, so if all you want to do is point the camera and take pictures, this is the mode for you. There are, however, several things that you can still do to enhance your images in this mode.

Firstly, you usually have the option to zoom in to the subject Just how much you choose to zoom will depend on how close you are to the subject and how much of the background you think you should include. If you like the background, leave it on a high resolution – if not, you can crop it away later in your image manipulation software until you are happy with the results.

Manual mode

Once you have learnt the basics of how your digital camera works, you may well want to experiment with the photographic special effects that it offers. This is where setting the camera to manual comes in; essentially, this mode hands you control of both the shutter speed and the aperture size.

Shutter speed priority mode

When the camera is set to shutter speed priority mode, the aperture size is still automatically controlled for the best exposure, but you get full control over the shutter speed. You may choose to do this so that you can set it to a very high speed for capturing moving objects, or alternatively you may want to go for a very slow shutter speed for subjects such as waterfalls.

Aperture priority mode

When you set the camera to aperture priority mode, it still calculates the best shutter speed to give you the optimal image exposure, but also allows you to adjust the aperture size to suit a particular effect. This can be very useful if you want to play around with depths of field – that is, the relative crispness of objects in the foreground and background of your image.

Stitch mode

You may well have seen images produced by panoramic film cameras before – such as school photographs, in which several hundred pupils line up in wide, massed ranks so that they can all be photographed together. How many of you remember the weird and wonderful cameras that slowly spun around on rotary mounts as they recorded your unhappy visages? Well, these days most of the better digital cameras can take similar pictures by using what is known as “stitch” mode. This is where a series of overlapping images are re-processed by the camera into one extra-wide panoramic view.

Landscape mode

Landscape mode sets the camera up to shoot expansive scenes. It generally does not have quite the same range flexibility as stitch mode, but it is an ideal medium for taking photographs of countryside scenes and so on.

Low light mode

Low light or night scene mode allows you to capture an image where a close-up subject gets lit by the flash, but the rest of the scene is given a low shutter speed. This lightens the background to make it appear to match the foreground subject.

Auto-rotate mode

If your camera has an auto-rotate mode, it means that an orientation sensor is used to detect which way up the camera was held when a shot was taken. If the mode is in operation, it turns all the images through the appropriate number of degrees so that they are all the same way up when you review them. If you are displaying your images on a television set or computer monitor, this facility can be very useful indeed.

Photo effects mode

If your camera offers this mode you can shoot images with all sorts of interesting and exciting effects.

Vivid: This effect enhances the colors and overall contrast to make the image seem brighter and sharper overall.

Neutral: This feature does exactly the opposite of the Vivid setting – it tones down the colors and contrast in the image.

Low sharpening: This feature reduces the strength of the outlines of the subjects in the image to give them a softer look.

Sepia: As you would imagine, sepia mode records the scene in sepia tones instead of full color, enabling atmospheric image effects.

Black and white: When this effect is applied, images are recorded in monochrome. Many people think that this is the best way to convey artistic images, feeling that the effects achieved are more subtle than color.

Custom effects: With the custom setting, you get full control over color, contrast and image sharpness.

Fast action mode

The fast action mode is used for taking photographs of fast moving subjects such as cars and trains.

Slow action mode

The slow action mode is generally used for creating artistic shots with blurred images of moving objects. It is Ideal for photographing running water, especially waterfalls or waves.

Continuous shooting modes

Many digital cameras have their own version of the film camera’s motor drive. There are two commonly available versions – low and high speed. Typically, the low speed continuous mode will allow you to see each image on the LCD screen as it is captured, whereas the high speed version does not. These modes are excellent if you want to take a series of shots of some kind of action event – a bowler at a cricket match, an overtaking maneuver in a car, a motorcycle or horse race, or simply your kids playing a with the family pet!

Image Credits

• Mode wheel on digital camera
• ‘What’s that little wheel for, grandpa?’ – Mike Goldberg

Do you attend trade shows or industry conferences? Perhaps you even shell out the big bucks to rent booth space at these events? If so, then you know that most of the time the reason for spending the big bucks on booth space at these events is to capture attention for your products and services, as well as, to generate leads. What better way to capture attention than to set up an iPad Kiosk at your trade shoot booth.

What is an iPad Kiosk?

An iPad Kiosk is simply an iPad contained within some sort of iPad enclosure or iPad stand. iPad Kiosks are designed to allow people to secure an iPad in a public location so that consumers can interact with the iPad as they are passing by. When using an iPad in a public location, your store, a trade show booth, etc. it is important to know that your iPad is not at any risk of theft. The three types of iPad Kiosks that you see most often used at Trade Shows are:

• iPad Kiosk Floor Stands
• iPad Kiosk Tabletop Stands
• iPad Wall Mounts

Floor stands allow for the most flexibility as they can be placed anywhere, while still offering security for the iPad owner and easy access for consumers. iPad Kiosk floor stands usually range in price from $300 – $600 depending on the type of stand you want to use. Floor Stands are usually the most expensive iPad Kiosk option, but they are also the most versatile. When using an iPad at a trade show, it’s important that you don’t take up your table space with an tabletop iPad Kiosk. Having a floor stand positioned next to your table will be much more convenient for both you and your booth visitors.

Tabletop iPad Kiosks are another great option. They can usually be purchased for a little less than the floor stands. The price range for a quality Tabletop iPad Kiosk is between $200 – $400. Although a tabletop iPad kiosk will take up some table space at your booth, it’s still a much better alternative than using an unsecured iPad at your trade show booth.

iPad Wall Mounts are your best option in terms of not needing a lot of space. That said, not all trade shows offer wall space for you to use. Except for your high-end trade shows, you normally only see an iPad mounted to a wall in a store, sports arena, college and university, or really any permanent location. We don’t recommend using an iPad Wall Mount for most trade shows. That said, if you’re in the market for a quality iPad Wall Mount you should budget around $200 – $400.

Benefits of Using an iPad at My Trade Show Booth

There are so many benefits of using an iPad at your trade show booth. Here are some of the top benefits that most people receive when using an iPad to engage trade show visitors at their booth:

• Increased interest and traffic at your booth – Everyone is drawn to iPads. People that see an iPad in a place where they are not used to seeing one will usually take the time to check it out. That’s exactly what you want when you attend a trade show, people to take a minute to stop by your trade show booth. This is what iPad delivers over and over again.
• More time spent at your trade show booth – Once the iPad has lured people to your trade show booth, usually those folks stick around your booth a little longer than they would a booth without an iPad. This provides you with an opportunity to share information with those folks about your products, services, company, and industry.
• Increased engagement in your company – People who take time to stop by your booth, and then spend some extra time while there, are also more engaged in what you have to say then those folks who simply pass by, say hello to be polite, grab your free tchotchke and leave. Having an iPad at your booth provides you with an opportunity to talk to someone who is actually listening to you and wants to learn more about such an innovative company.
• Ability to convert booth traffic into online connections – As we will discuss a little later in this article, there are apps out there that allow you to collect email addresses right on you iPad. Say goodbye to that pad of paper that you used to use to collect email addresses. Now you can collect email addresses on your iPad right there at your booth. You don’t even need an internet connection to do it!
• Opportunity to show educational content about your products, services, company, and industry – Do you have YouTube videos detailing your products or services? How about a website? Maybe you have product specs saved as PDF files. Any of these pieces of content can be served up on the iPad for your trade show booth visitors to read or watch.

The list above provides a snapshot of just a few of the top benefits that using an iPad at your trade show booth provides. Depending on how you use the iPad, which apps you run, and how many people show up, there are a lot more benefits that you’ll enjoy.

How to Set Up an iPad at My Trade Show Booth

So now that you’ve read through all of the benefits of using an iPad at your trade show booth, let’s take some time to explain how you can actually put this theory into practice. It’s actually a lot easier than you might think. Follow the steps below and you will have an iPad up and running at your next trade show.

1. Determine how you want to use the iPad at your trade show booth. This is the most important step as once you determine how you want to use the iPad, you can then go about securing the proper components to make your plan work. Take some time, figure out what your goals for the trade show are, and then think about how using an iPad can help you achieve those goals. Do a little research. See what apps are out there. Read some articles to see how other companies are using iPads at trade shows. Once you have your plan in place, then you can move on to executing on that plan.
2. Buy an iPad or figure out which one (or many) you’re going to use.
3. Find out if there will be wireless internet at the trade show and also determine if you will have access to a power supply based on where your trade show booth is located.
4. Purchase your iPad Kiosk. Depending on how your booth is setup up, how much space you have, and where your power supply is located, we recommend that you either purchase a iPad floor stand or a tabletop iPad kiosk. These two types of iPad Kiosks work best for trade shows.
5. Download any apps you need or get any content that you want to display on the iPad ready. Review everything prior to the trade show so that there are no surprises when you get there.
6. Go into your Settings app, tap the General tab, and set “Autolock” to never. This will ensure that your iPad doesn’t go into sleep mode during the trade show. The last thing that you want is for people to pass by your iPad Kiosk and the screen is blank. Whatever content you want to display, be sure that it’s on the screen at all times.

If you follow these steps you should be able to have an iPad Kiosk set up at your trade show booth in no time. Not only that, but you can feel confident that your iPad will function as you envisioned it.

iPad Apps to Use at Trade Shows

Although more and more companies and individuals are using iPads to engage consumers at trade shows, in retail stores, at restaurants, and so on, the list of available apps to use for this purpose is still quite small. That said, I think we are on the verge of an explosion in these types of iPad apps. It’s only a matter of time before iPad app developers realize just how big a market this can be. For now, below is a list of some fo the best iPads to use at your trade show.

OnSpot Social

Collect Facebook Likes, Add Twitter Followers, and Collect Customer Email Addresses from Anywhere.

OnSpot Social is an iPad application that allows business owners to grow their social media community, as well as, collect email addresses for their email marketing list from a physical location. Simply set up an iPad Kiosk at your trade show booth, purchase a 1 week subscription from OnSpot Social, and convert trade show visitors into online connections.

One of the main goals for all trade show exhibitors is to collect leads. Usually this is done by having booth visitors write their email address down on a piece of paper. After the trade show someone then has to decipher each person’s handwriting and input each email address into the computer. With OnSpot Social this is all done for you. Booth visitors put their name and email address into your iPad, after the show you can log into OnSpotSocial.com and download a list of all of the email addresses you’ve collected. No more losing email addresses because you can’t read the person’s handwriting and now more wasting time retyping the information into your system.

KioskPro

Turn Your iPad into a Digital Billboard.

KioskPro allows you to turn your iPad into a Digital Billboard, run a photo slide show, or even display your website easily to your trade show booth visitors. Depending on what content you want to show on our iPad, KioskPro might make a lot of sense for your next Trade Show. If you want to show pictures of your products, show customer testimonials, or even your website, KioskPro allows you to set up a slide show or digital billboard to accomplish this task. Booth traffic can then interact with your iPad Kiosk right there at your booth.

YouTube

Play Product or Service Videos for Trade Show Booth Visitors.

If you don’t want to pay to download an iPad app like OnSpot Social or KioskPro, you can always use YouTube to play videos for booth visitors. Simply open up the YouTube app on your iPad, navigate to your YouTube Channel or even to a specific video, and leave it up for people to play. This allows you to educate your trade show both visitors without you having to say a word. You can then be there to support the video by answering any questions that booth visitors might have after watching your videos on YouTube. One thing to note if you use the YouTube app, be sure to reset the video back to the beginning after each person, or group of people, is finished watching.

These are 3 of a number of iPad apps out there that you can leverage for your next trade show. Again, the list of apps is still small, but give it 6 months to a year and I think there are going to be plenty more hitting the app store.

Use iPad at a Trade Show

Now that you’ve finished reading the article, what do you think? Do you believe using an iPad at your trade show booth can help you better achieve your goals? Have you ever used an iPad at a trade show before? What were your results? Please leave a comment below as we’d love to hear what you think.

Image Credits

• iPad2 at “Invest” exhibition
• Apple employees greet customers on Ipad launch

The main goal of employees is to satisfy clients by offering good service. While good service helps salaried employees gain success in their growth within an enterprise, freelancers build their reputation and gain future projects through good service. Therefore, it is very important to offer good service to your clients. Only quality service can be the strong base of a successful business.

To start with, good quality is simple but maintaining that quality throughout your work is difficult. Sometimes too much work might hamper your quality, and at times less time dedication may lead to bad quality. This article discusses the importance of great service and guides you in delivering great service and maintaining it throughout.

Importance of quality service

Delivering quality service is a necessity for employees to satisfy their employers and keep their jobs. For freelancers, it is more important, as quality work can only get them good work and let them get going with their freelancing. Most freelancers work on a project basis from the cozy comfort of their homes. Therefore, only when they provide quality service to their clients and satisfy them, will they be able to gain future projects; the moment they fail to deliver great service, their chances of gaining future projects decrease. Below are some of the benefits a freelancer gains by delivering great service:

• Trust between clients and employee: As a freelancer, you are solely responsible for your work; therefore your work quality adds value to your independent identity as a freelancer. Great service keeps your clients satisfied, which helps them build trust in you. They will find you reliable and give you more freedom in your work to allow you to add your own ideas. This will help you to work freely and more creatively as your clients will reduce their queries.
• Increased referrals: When you offer quality work you leave a mark on your clients and impress them. And when they find you reliable, they will not hesitate to refer you to their friends and colleagues. Therefore, quality work will increase referrals for you and help you grow further in your work.
• More work projects: Quality work will not only satisfy your clients but also build a good name for you. It will help you to create a reputation in the professional world and make your name a brand in your circle. Your value will be acknowledged and you will be offered more work projects. Your quality work will also help you earn future projects.

Therefore, all the basic needs for you to have control over your job depend on your work quality. It fulfills your client’s needs and helps you to earn future projects. Maintaining good quality is not that difficult unless you intentionally compromise your standards, which can ruin your standing. Once creating great quality becomes a habit, you will be familiar with the flow and move along well with it. You should be very careful in improving your quality; maintain consistency in your work at least so you continue to satisfy your clients’ requirements. While great work will bring you more work, failure to do so might also lose you potential projects. Therefore, delivering great service is not just important for you to gain success but also to maintain your job.

Factors to offer good service

After realizing the importance of delivering good service it is clear that maintaining good service is a necessity for every job. Good service includes more than just good work. It goes beyond just offering good work and comprises maintaining professional etiquette, being conscious of deadlines, and maintaining a good client-employee relationship. For example:
when a restaurant is said to offer good service, this means that along with good food, the restaurant offers a proper environment, hospitable staff, and food that is served with decorum. Similarly, when a freelancer is supposed to offer good service to a client, he or she has to offer good all-round service. Below are the major elements or factors that should be considered to ensure your clients get great service.

• Satisfy clients’ expectations
• Maintain work quality
• Offer high availability
• Maintain professional etiquette
• Communicate well with clients
• Be deadline conscious
• Be honest at all times

The above-mentioned elements are important for offering good service to clients and all should be followed. Even avoiding one factor is not an option as all seven are important. Now let’s discuss these elements in detail so you can understand how to offer great service and satisfy your clients.

Satisfy clients’ expectations

Every employee should aim to satisfy clients. You should first understand your clients’ expectations and then satisfy them. Understanding a client’s expectations is very simple. Along with providing quality work in estimated time, your client will expect you to be honest and fair in business. You will be expected to be responsible towards the work and communicate actively. You will also be expected to offer new ideas and be creative. You should maintain all these and thus satisfy your clients’ expectations. Try to estimate the time you require to finish a particular job, then clearly inform your client about the timelines. Finish the job before the deadline and provide great quality work at the end of the project. In the meantime, be in regular contact with your clients and respond to their feedbacks and comments.

Be upfront about everything, whether it be a job, budget, or time issue. Don’t make fake promises because it will be difficult for you to continue with such promises. Therefore, remain honest in your business and maintain a healthy relationship with your clients. Be consistent with your service from the beginning until the end. Maintaining all these attributes will help you satisfy your clients’ expectations.

Maintain work quality

Maintaining work quality is very important to impress clients. Quality of work is vital to ensure great service; therefore make sure you provide perfect quality work throughout your tenure of a project. Do not compromise with your work because your reputation depends on the quality of work you provide. To maintain work quality, it is important you dedicate enough time and concentration to the work. When you are freelancing, you choose to work from your own comfort zone and therefore, unlike an office environment, you have to be responsible about your timelines. As you will be working from your own space, there can be many distractions. Therefore, make sure you divide your work time accordingly and maintain it strictly so you can concentrate fully on the job at hand. If you fail to manage it from the beginning, you will not be able to satisfy clients’ expectations. This might cause last-minute hurry, which will again hamper your work. Therefore, maintain your time properly and come out with quality work for your client.

Try to finish one job at a time, and then take on another job. This will help you focus on a particular job and not be distracted from producing quality work. However, if you feel you are capable of handling more than one project at a time, make sure you allocate separate working hours for both jobs and apply your dedication to the job you are working on. This will help you to maintain quality on both projects. Too much work and insufficient time are the main reasons why quality is compromised, so it is important to balance your work and time. Also develop the habit of monitoring the entire job after completing it, before you submit it to your clients. You should also keep backups of every job so you do not encounter any job-related problems during the project. Maintaining the quality of your work will build trust among your clients and enhance your future prospects. Ongoing quality is the real mantra for offering great service.

Offer high availability

It is very important to offer high availability to clients in order to stay in the race of the professional world. Offering high availability means being responsive towards your clients’ emails and calls, and providing them service as they need it. To do this, you have to be active with your email check up and phone calls. Make sure you receive your clients’ calls, and if you miss any, make sure you get back to them soon. The same goes for emails. You have to be active with your inbox and be responsive to your clients’ queries and expectations. When you are dealing with a particular client make sure you make the client feel important and that you are solely at his/her service. You will be having more than one client and it is your responsibility to handle them in your ways.

All the above facts may sound that you are becoming a slave to work. But you can make the task easier by establishing an understanding between your clients and yourself. At the beginning of the job, make sure you are clear about your timelines. Check your emails at regular intervals and respond to your clients. Regarding phone calls, from the initial stage of the job divide your time between work and play and make this division clear to your client. Speak upfront about your timelines and do not hesitate to say you will not entertain calls during your play time unless they are urgent. This will help you by making your terms clear to your clients, and they will not hamper you with calls anytime. However, during peak times you might have to work beyond your normal times. Be prepared to compromise with such situations as they are the part of your work. Therefore, maintain high availability for clients without hampering your personal life.

To ensure you respond punctually to emails, set alarms for new emails and unsubscribe unwanted email notifications to avoid distractions from work. Also check your inbox at regular intervals to keep updated on any new developments with your clients’ requirements. Ensure you are not spending too much time on your emails. You should respond to your clients’ mails regularly and not make them feel ignored. Be sure you are at their service whenever they need it. You can adopt one easy way to create a balance between your work time and play time and still maintain availability to your clients. Mention your business time and email address on your voice mail messages. This will help your client know about your times and that you are not avoiding their work. This will help both you and your client. At times there will be real urgent work for clients; during such situations do not your clients down. Make sure you meet their needs ? your extra effort and work will count in building a healthy relationship. Whenever you are going on a planned holiday, make sure you inform your clients about such plans ahead of time. When the plan is an urgent one, try to leave a mail or message for your clients informing them about your unavailability, and mention the seriousness of your situation. Offer quality work and high availability to your clients without hampering your personal life.

Maintain professional etiquette

Maintaining professional etiquette is very important for every person in the professional world. Professional etiquette includes attending to phone calls properly and responding to email queries on time. We mention above the need to respond to emails and calls. Now, let’s look at other etiquette that should be maintained in a profession. Make sure you respect your clients’ needs and their time. Maintain courtesy and respect towards your clients.

Suppose you have an urgent query, and you need to clarify it with your client, which requires you to call your client out of office hours. At such times, practice the courtesy of asking whether the client is free and comfortable to answer your queries at that particular time. If the client says yes, you can continue with your query; if the answer is no, contact the client at a more convenient time and accept the arrangement courteously. Be polite in your communication and make sure you never speak about your clients in a derogatory manner in front of anyone. If you are facing any problem, rather clarify it with your client than gossip about it behind the client’s back. Respect your clients’ demands and attend to their requirements properly. Be a good listener and attach importance to your clients’ talk. Do not make your clients feel you are not paying heed to their talk and are leaving them unattended. Practice humility, courtesy, and respect in order to provide great service.

Communicate well with clients

It is very important to communicate well with your clients. In the above sections, we often refer to the importance of communicating frankly with clients. While communicating properly with your clients, there are certain aspects that should be followed. Below are these aspects:

• Gain control over your communicating language so you do not face any language problems while communicating with your clients.
• Clarify your timelines and working capabilities with your clients.
• Be an active listener to understand your clients’ needs and expectations.
• Maintain frankness and honesty in communicating with your clients.
• Be active with your emails and phone calls and respond to your clients’ requirements on time.

These are aspects of communication you should maintain in dealing with your clients. Communication can never be one-sided and therefore, along with being an active speaker, be an active listener. Whenever you are communicating with your clients, make sure you build a conversation and allow your clients to have their say as well. Remember to be clear and straight in your conversation so there are no hindrances regarding your communication with your clients. Maintain all these aspects and communicate well with your clients.

Be deadline conscious

To offer great service to clients it is important to be deadline conscious. Every project needs to be completed within a particular time. You need to understand the seriousness of deadlines and be particular about the fact that you complete clients’ work on time. Make sure you clarify your required time with your clients before taking on a project. After you commit to a job within a period of time, it becomes your responsibility to complete it within that time. Try to complete one job within a time and even if you are dealing with more than one job make sure you complete both jobs on time.

Make sure you maintain your work time strictly to avoid last-minute rushes. Do not compromise your work quality to complete work before deadline. Be deadline conscious and maintain work quality in order to offer great service to your clients.

Maintain honesty

Honesty is one of the most important things that should be adopted to succeed in business. Try to be honest with your clients to create a healthy relationship with them. If you think the time given to you is not enough speak about it and be honest in expressing that the time is insufficient to complete the job. Avoid making fake promises because such promises will bring problems back to you in future. Therefore, be honest while dealing with your clients.

These are some of the considerations that should be borne in mind to offer great service to your clients. Besides these factors, be proactive in your service, manage your project well, and follow a well-planned schedule to complete your work. Also be sure to keep backups of your work. Do not hesitate to discuss your work plan with your clients and ask them for ideas whenever you feel the need to. Try to understand your clients’ requirements and resolve all their issues properly. Consider your clients’ expectations as the first priority. Always try to learn from your mistakes and try not to repeat them in future. Follow all these elements while dealing with your clients to ensure great service and satisfaction with the final result.

Image Credits

• Deadlines
• Businessman sitting at office

In a nutshell, infographics are visual representations involving data with applied design and style aspects to display written content. In forms of images plus text, some charts and other friendly resources, they extend the content of articles, usually of statistical data, and increase familiarity of readers in a way that elevates their comprehension. In this article, we will tackle how you can design effective infographics for your blog.

Factors to Consider When Designing Infographics

1. Focus of the readers’ eyes

Infographics raise awareness whereby people can relate and understand the subject matter better. As attention span of the average user is increasing, it’s important then to limit the scope of information and draw boundaries to win the focus of their eyes. The display on the graphics should create much more imagination. Ask guide questions when creating an infographic.

Stick to one problem and solution that you want the graphic to address. For instance, if you want to talk about the results of polling in politics, you can the winning and losing percentages, and some relevant images (and captions) of candidates pertinent to the main concern.

2. Information Flow

In parallel to the first item above, there should be a good flow in the information you’re trying to show and process. Nothing goes into effect without a cause; therefore, in any information flow, cause and effect relationships must be present and highlighted significantly. To check whether these relationships in your infographics are accurately done, position yourself as a layperson who does not know anything about the message and facts you’re conveying.

Put together words, icons, charts and images with arrows and lines in a playful style to make something even a child could understand. Engage readers from start to finish by grouping related data by flowcharting to simplify the process and connect thoughts. If the topic is about economic recession, arrange the sequence of events leading to the industry slowdown with the different stakeholders involved (e.g. countries, organizations and other groups) and construct a good visual journey for their comprehension and entertainment as well.

3. Color Motif

Selecting colors is an important aspect of graphic design. Color is the most effective tool to guide authors and influence their readers. It pulls you into continuing to read whatever is presented. When used properly, the color motif may be the yardstick of the success in making the information more readable by giving the readers a variety of impressions, both conceptually and emotionally.

One good pointer is to have excellent contrast: the textual content should blend well with the background, design and other illustrations. Colors can also determine the hierarchy and concept of details. Assign colors and designate each one to its consequential use; do not blandly scatter them all over the place without tying to one thought.

4. Font and proper weight

Design is not just about colors; it is also widely about typography, as infographics consist of both text and images. Choose the right font face and size for your text.

Keep in mind that infographics should not look plainly like an excerpt of some serious news article in a newspaper. Rather, the design should be creative but not so wacky that it looks misleading. Just aim for the proper.

5. Illustrations/Images

If your content is all great but design and images used are just the opposite, it is not worth doing infographics. For infographics to work well, it should have a great appeal toward the audience. Try different combinations of illustrations, images, graphics, diagrams, logos and icons. The effectiveness of the complete graphics will depend entirely on your creativity as a designer.

Also make the sizes just appropriate in proportion to the size of the infographics and consider applying the right scale for emphasis (e.g. bigger pictures may be signs that the items bring more impact and meaning). In any case, make sure that all the images you use are of high resolution.

6. Data Integrity

Be responsible for the information found in your presentation. It should contain accurate and timely data. As infographics may lead readers to the wrong conclusion due to lack of verifiable information and misinterpretation of resources, it’s a good rule of thumb to always cite your sources of data and their relevant links and follow through providing captions. Allow visitors to explore the details if they wish.

Giving credit to sources also gives you an opportunity to contact the authors and webmasters behind and inform them that their work has been acknowledged, used and mentioned. There’s also greater probability that these influential sources link and share your infographic to their work which may later on give your poster an initial boost in sharing and traffic terms.

7. Visual Simplicity

How do we ensure that the graphics effectively deliver complete information and knowledge to the public? Simplicity is the best policy. Ensure that the information transmitted is well arranged, organized and structured. Visual simplicity ensures that the charts, graphs and other representations will be easy for readers to understand.

Percentages can most of the time be represented with creative pie charts; mathematical principles in a set can usually be turned into a unique bar graph; and when numbers don’t fit on a scale, you might be able to place them in a visual diagrams.

Computer graphics should be simple, clean, clear and concise. Also, there should be consistency in the overall design. Every aspect should flow and make sense together.

8. Interesting Information

Research and dig deep to find the most powerful and compelling facts to include in your design. How interesting is “interesting?” It should get viewers exclaim and say “What? I did not know that!” and make a mark that is so unforgettable that it urges a discussion among the members of a forum or some community.

9. Target Market/Demographics

For your infographic to be successful, it should be geared to a specific audience. Only when the shift of focus is known and precise can it be effective in communication. You should create the infographic with a concept that should suit the reader, as infographics can be made with different forms and topics (e.g. sports, food, modern science, financial, political, etc.) and relayed with different emotions and responses (e.g. humor, fear, shock, pity).

10. Catchy Descriptions

Infographics are cool cheat sheets of certain topics. Normally, these topics contain sections that people delve in. If you have an infographic that look like a messy page of a scrapbook, make sure that every section has its respective catchy title or description that can better explain what the following images or facts are about to deliver.

Just like in any book, magazine or web content, readers may feel confused or bored when they are overwhelmed with piles of colors and items put together wholly so define each one with a headline to clearly mark the main idea.

11. Definite Purpose and Conclusion

As much as audience should be exact, there should be a definite purpose in creating and showcasing an infographic. The purpose is the element used to provide direction for all objects to be placed inside the graphics.

Ask why you need to create the infographic in the first place before visualizing how you’re beautifully going to display data. After doing much research to back up your established facts, identify your point of conclusion as well. Condense and decide how you’re presenting it, and have the confidence to deduct to a single-sentence message tackling on what you want to really impart with your poster.

12. Use of Space

An infographic crowded with much images and text would still look presentable and understandable if the use of space is proportioned well. Usually, the more points of data you can clearly show in such small space, the better. Best examples of infographics shown on the net compile large amounts of data into a story that gives the viewer deeper levels of understanding. Maximize the space you have to fill that density of data; large white spaces don’t look good.

Infographic Case Studies

In this part, we give you some examples of infographics and we’d determine if they are effective in sharing their message as they should:

1. The Insanely Great History of Apple

Infographic source

This visual is trying to show the history of Apple and reveal the record of Apple’s computer systems from the beginning of the organization in 1983 to the present. Its intended viewers may not also be specific to technical and smart people but also those who are interested in knowing the records of how Apple came to be such a giant company in the present. The graph used time (devices made from 1983 – 2011), category (how it uses different colors to represent different types of devices) and hierarchy (how some categories take up more space and are larger than others). Generally speaking, the visual reveals that Apple organization has had quite a few different computer systems over the years and is effective in making this statement. Segmentation of facts is done well with the many colors on the background.

2. The Evolution of the Geek

Infographic source

The data present in this visual is associated to the various types of geeks in the world, where they originate and circulate, so to speak. The infographic’s objective, as its name indicates, is to demonstrate the development of how geeks progressed. It used a time flow chart to demonstrate the progression and categorization. Each geek is showed by a different symbol and is characterized by a cute cartoon. This visual definitely attracts interest, however, it does not do much else. On the other hand, aesthetics wise, it’s still eye-catching and effective as it provides details in a concise and clear way without beating around the bush.

3. 2010 FIFA World Cup

Infographic source

This infographic provides interesting information about the 2010 World Cup tournaments mostly through graphs. Its potential target viewers are those people interested in the World Cup. As we view the graphic, we learn the broad statement here that there were 32 countries that competed and that Brazil has won the most World Cups. A lot shown in the infographic are composed of common information and facts, and this is okay. However, design opportunities are lost somehow in the sense that heavier images could have been incorporated (e.g. designs or themes inspired by sports like the field shape, goal netting, crowd ethnicity, soccer ball). Still, it’s an effective infographic with good numbers, giving a quick overview at how big the FIFA World Cup games really are.

4. Why You Should Stop Drinking Bottled Water

Infographic source

This infographic was made by TermLifeInsurance.org, a non-profitable organization, to explain to everyone why we should stop drinking bottled water. It has followed most of the suggestions above. For one, the title is clear and catchy on its message. Secondly, it has listed the sources at the bottom of the graphic. Third, it had a mix of basic colors neat to the eyes: red, black and white, making the text easy to read. Fourth, the font face used matches the design. As for the drawbacks, there are no axis labels on the pie and bar charts. This may leave the viewer wondering how to match the values or percentages to the actual meaning. Moreover, there are lots of spaces not maximized in the infographic, where it should have contained more forms of graphs. Instead, the images that do not present anything of greater meaning (e.g. the water bottle) occupied much space. On other view, this graphic would most likely draw anyone’s attention as it captures our day-to-day living; almost every living person drinks bottled water. With interesting facts sectioned properly, this one is still counted as effective.

5. Top 5 Most Active Twitter Moments

Infographic source

This infographic seems to be not an infographic at all, as it failed to show information visually. The tweets per second should have been displayed through a bar graph or bar chart. By seeing the heights of the bars, readers would quickly gauge the measure in differences of the tweets per second and event without reading the textual content. With this image above, readers might not grasp the comparisons. To aid as a solution, a suggestion is while creating an infographic, put all the text in one layer and hide this layer to check if all other elements are still making sense. If yes, then you’re successful at that. Otherwise, you’re like doing too much telling and not enough showing. Texts are only to support what is presented and should not be the “main stars” in the scene.

Conclusion

Infographics are graphics used to provoke thoughts, align more understanding to the article base, entertain or market or sell products and ideas, and inspire when done right. But having an interesting and attractive design with good content is only half the battle in creating infographics. The most important is that it jives with the substance of your article and that data you present is dependable and worthy to be shared among peers.

Too many times I’ve heard people complain of a misunderstanding on what was needed on the project and due to a missed milestone, delayed submission of images or copy or just an argument over payments and project scope. While some people think this is all covered in a contract, which many people don’t have, the creative brief is the “Holy Book” of the project. I’m not being flippant about religious texts, mind you. I’m putting an emphasis on the importance of having everything written down and agreed upon by all parties to make sure the project runs smoothly and everyone involved ends up pleased with the results.

Why A Creative Brief Is NOT A Contract… Perhaps!

Ask someone to sign a contract and they will usually have a reason as to why they don’t want to sign. A contract contains hard and fast rules of the business end of a project. The length of execution, change fees, payments and rights of use are some of the elements spelled out in a contract. With careful wording, a creative brief can hold all of that information, too!

When first sitting down in the office or conference room of a client or meeting of the different players in your company, it’s time to start taking notes on what is said, asking certain questions and… setting requirements and boundaries.

At one firm, which was a very large corporation, we would all sit down in the conference room for a project meeting. Each department head would listen to the project scope and desired results. Like a puzzle, or perhaps a tower, each step depended on every department meeting the milestones set so the next department could pick up there and supply the needed elements only they could provide and so on around the company until it fell upon the art department.

If one department took too long with their part, like a tower with a missing part in the middle, the project would start to tumble down. Unfortunately, it would always be the art department that would be crushed under the weight of the steel beams of incompetence supplied by other departments.

The creative brief, written up and sent out by the art department served to hold people responsible. In regular meetings during the project, it made it easier to ask other departments where they stood on their milestones and why, inevitably, they were late. With a sympathetic and strong project leader, responsibility and meeting deadlines will make sure that creative won’t have a week to create the final project when other departments were to take only two weeks out of a two-month project.

It seems that at most companies this is the standard operating procedure. It’s rare that a project manager can or will keep tight reign on milestones. It’s even more rare that there’s a professional project manager at companies. Usually, someone will be assigned as a project manager and they might not have enough experience or the corporate level to demand strict adherence to milestones on a project. In a corporate setting, this usually leads to problems with getting a project done on time. In a freelance situation, your time is your money and when you end up either working an extra week or so on a flat fee, trying to charge for extra hours or working an extreme rush to make a deadline, it’s a losing situation for you and can lead to a project that probably won’t be your best work. In the end you’ll get the blame and although unfair, well… welcome to business!

So, how do you protect your reputation, income potential and show yourself to be a valuable vendor to a client or a competent project manager to your corporate boss? Start with a clear and concise creative brief and an iron fist! If written correctly, the information you include will leave no stone unturned and no question unanswered. It’s not really hard.

Where To Begin

Organization is the key. When I first started my design career, working both freelance and on staff, I would create a job folder for each and every assignment and project. I started by labeling the folder and then having a short creative brief written on the outside of the folder. It listed the following:

• Name of the project.
• Date I received it.
• Date the project was due.
• Who was involved in the project, their names, phone numbers/extensions, email addresses.
• Milestones for materials needed from these people.
• From there, as the project proceeded, I would write down notes of what was happening on a daily basis.
• Were we on time?
• Were there requested changes and by whom?
• What milestones were missed and by whom?
• When files were delivered and to whom.

Within these file folders, I placed all printouts of the design stages, emails from other departments/people and anything else that pertained to the project. Most of my bosses commended me for “knowing where the project was at any time.”

At one employer where incompetence was encouraged through rampant Peter Principle, I was told my file folders, “made people nervous.”

Of course people were nervous; it held people accountable. It’s not that the folders were set up to embarrass people… well, I admit that it was a part of it because the blame-game was big at that firm and I had to protect myself from the lying finger-pointers, which really infuriated them to no end, but it was also the only way to keep a 100% on time delivery record.

The plain fact is that these folders were invaluable to juggle what was sometimes two-dozen projects going on at once. Multitasking is nothing more than being organized and there are tools one can use for that organization. The “Folders of Evidence and Blame,” as my boss referred to them, were invaluable.

While these were somewhat private creative briefs for myself, it’s best, when managing a project, especially on a freelance basis, to have a written brief for everyone to retain for their own folders, if they have one.

A Practical Creative Brief

I’ve looked at other creative briefs available on the web and frankly; I’m not impressed with what I saw. The examples available didn’t cover enough to really let the client know all of the steps nor did it cover the creative’s end of the project. Here’s a brief that you can use as a template for your next project:

Client/Client contact information:

Name, phone number and email address for the person or the team on the client side.

Project:

Web site update incorporating Instagram/Pinterest functions for customer interaction/inbound marketing. Email blast design with links to be used with email service. Web banner for insertion on web sites. Three page, gatefold Print brochure.

Prepared by:

Name, phone number and email address for the person who is responsible for in-house project management.

Background/Overview:

Web site: Design and code new page to include “Instagram/Pinterest” customer insertions of photos and images (company moderation).

Redesign and code homepage to pinpoint and add navigation to new page.

Design and code web banner. Standard size. Consult insertions into web pages booked by client.

Design and production of three-page, gatefold printed brochure for delivery to printer by client. Four color printing. 8.5” H x 11” W. 100 lb. matte stock. Client will handle all printing and delivery to mailing house.

Timeline/Milestones:

Start time: Date goes here.

Client delivers images/logos for brochure, web banner and web site. All copy delivered by client.

1st Milestone:

Sketches for design of all components – (set date).

Client revisions/approval by (set date).

Revised sketches delivered by (set date).

Client revisions/approval by (set date).

*Further revisions will change milestones. Adjusted brief will be resubmitted to client.

2nd Milestone:

Photoshop images of pages, banner and brochure – (set date).

Client revisions/approval by (set date).

Revised images delivered by (set date).

*Further revisions will change milestones. Adjusted brief will be resubmitted to client.

3rd Milestone:

(Set date)

Delivery of completed banner ad to client.

Delivery of production ready brochure files to client.

*Further revisions will change milestones. Adjusted brief will be resubmitted to client.

4th Milestone:

(Set date)

Web page uploaded and debugged. Live publishing for web page and banner ad (set date).

Payments:

Fee: $ (total fee for project)

Deposit: $ (set fee – should be one-third to half of total fee). Deposit due at start time.

1st Milestone: $ (percentage of fee)

2nd Milestone: $ (percentage of fee)

3rd Milestone: $ (percentage of fee)

4th Milestone: $ (*ideally, this should be the final percentage of the entire fee for the project)

* Changes beyond the first round (further changes) will be billed separately at a rate of $ (set hourly rate) per hour.

Rights:

Client purchases all rights to design/copyright for work rendered. Transfer of copyright is contingent upon full payment.

There’s Still More

This, of course, is just the basics as an example. The more you list, going into the smallest details, the more you will protect yourself against “misunderstandings” as the project proceeds. The biggest problem with any project is the “but I said…” or “I thought this would be…” and the ever popular, “I thought we were going to add this?”

While a contract spells out rights, payments and promises kept only through legal wording, a creative brief shows all parties how the project will proceed and, most importantly, how payments will be made. With a contract, people may see it at the beginning of the project but won’t look at it again until you are threatening to sue them for breaking your agreement. The creative brief reminds people every step of the way that you won’t work for free, excessive changes will cost more.

Still, a creative brief may need to include the demographics of the customer/target audience. Although I haven’t experienced it myself, I have heard from other designers about clients who set the design standards of a project but later complain that the work doesn’t reflect their consumer base.

One example I can relate was a company president who kept using the word, “sophisticated” for a design project. With every design sketch, she would say, “no, no, no! I want sophisticated!”

After eleven attempts at “sophisticated,” I finally asked her to show me some examples of what she liked and I would take it as inspiration. After she pointed out a few examples, I realized she was wrong and severely nuts! What she really wanted was something whimsical. This is a great, and painful, example of miscommunication and how much work just one word – one descriptor can cause. I was on staff at the company so it wasn’t as big of a deal as if it was a freelance assignment, which would have been a disaster if it were a flat fee. It was just an extreme waste of time and a tick that showed up on my annual performance review as, “failed to satisfy the president’s wishes in eleven rounds of changes.”

This is yet something else that needs to be included in the creative brief. Words can be misinterpreted or misused. Sometimes people use their hands to describe what they want, moving them up and down and sideways to specify size, layout or “sophistication.” Your job, as the creative lead, is to pull out what it is they really mean and place it into the written brief so there are no extra rounds of design that cut into your fee or take you away from other projects.

Demographics are another important point to clarify for the creative brief. WHO is the intended audience? The answer might be “everybody” and it might be “18-28 year-old men who live in their parent’s basement.”

Remember to ask these questions so when you are ready to write up your brief to present to the client, there will be no holes that might trip up the project down the road. If there are any holes or misunderstandings, the time… and money, will come out of YOUR end and that can add up over a year to thousands of dollars.

The Project Folder

The computer did not, as promised, make us a paperless society. Digital communications added to the lack of memory people have. Computers, in a big way, replaced our ability to remember and store information in our own brains. An example is when a client doesn’t remember you saying something on an email, like asking to be paid or trying to find out why the three-day period for a decision on final designs has taken 17 months.

The project folder is a handy way to draw everything together in one place for future reference. By placing printouts of all emails, the creative brief, notes, inspirational images, invoices from stock houses, vendors you use and finally, a copy of the check(s) you receive, it becomes the record of the project if you ever have to refer back to something later.

Referring Back When Problems Arise

Anyone who tells you they have never had a problem with a design project is either a liar or a psychotic. There are projects that run up against certain questions either during or after a project is complete. Usually it’s getting paid when a client questions how much work has actually been done and why the project costs more then $79.

Seriously, we laugh at that statement but we all know it to be true. In cases where you must sit down with the client and go over all aspects of the project and show proof of requests, changes, costs incurred by you and anything else, the folder will hold all of the answers. Naturally, the client might not agree that the answer they sent in an email, telling you that all designs are approved is really what they meant, but that leads to another avenue – court.

If you are forced to go to court or mediation, the project folder is a lawyer’s dream. Everything in writing, in one place and ready to present as the record of each step. Even if you have no contract (you should have one!), the project folder and the creative brief will show intent, agreement and steps taken to complete the project.

You will also find that creative briefs are handy for repeat clients. In web design, it’s important to retain clients to service their ever-changing web needs. As technology evolves and companies grow, the original creative brief serves to remind you of how the client prefers to work with you. Reviewing past project files and briefs can also remind you when it’s time to contact a client to pitch updates to their site. It’s a wonderful tool that’s invaluable. So, run out to your local office supply store, buy some file folders, design a creative brief sheet with your logo on it and you’ll see how easy a great creative brief and project folder can make your life and business.

Image Credits

• Taking notes on Michael Arndt’s talk
• Just getting started
• The hand stretches a folder

Every app needs some extra widgets, like calendar for example. Therefore, we decided to offer you one and that’s not all…I’m going to build a tutorial explaining you all the steps involved in designing one. If you’re a Photoshop newbie, you’ll learn a lot following this tut, from designing techniques to Photoshop effects and lot more.

“I’ve been on a calendar, but I’ve never been on time”- Marilyn Monroe

Final Result

Let’s see what you will be creating in this tutorial.

Materials Needed:

• Wood Pattern from PulsarWallpapers

Design a Calendar Widget in Photoshop

Let’s get started!

Step 1: Create New File

Open Photoshop and create a new document of 600x450px. Set the “Background Contents” to “Transparent“.

Step 2: Setting Up the Background

I decided to use a nice wood pattern as background. Download the Wood Pattern from PulsarWallpapers and add it to the Photoshop stage. The image will be our background.

Step 3: Draw Calendar Shape

Let’s start building the calendar widget. Grab the Rectangle Tool (U) and draw a white rectangle of 280x260px right in the middle of the stage. Then apply to it the next layer styles:

This is how the calendar looks like until now:

Step 4: Draw Calendar Header

Let’s draw the header, which will be the Months slider…each month will slide on the header, and the calendar will change its days. Of course, this is only a design and will have no functionality, but is the first step for any project. In general, the design is the first step of any type of project.

Select the Rectangle Tool(U) and draw a rectangle of 280x40px over the shape. Position it at the top of the shape and stylize it with the next layer styles:

This is how the header should look like:

Step 5: Draw Month Change Arrows

We still need to add some more touches to the header, like months, 2 arrows and a line. So add with the Horizontal Type Tool(T) a month name(I chose August), select the Custom Shape Tool(U) and add 2 small arrows and after, grab the Line Tool(U) and draw a dark horizontal line(#352111) at the base of the header.

Step 6: Draw Rows & Columns

Let’s proceed. We’re gonna build now the boxes for each day of the month but before doing this, I want to speak about “Guides”. Guides help you position images or elements precisely. Guides appear as nonprinting lines that float over the image. You can move and remove guides.You can also lock them so that you don’t move them by accident. To add a guide, firstly you need to activate Rulers(Ctrl+R) or go to View->Rulers. The rulers should appear on top and left side of canvas. Add a guide by drawing from rulers to stage.

Now that you know how to use guides, select the Rectangle Tool(U) and draw 5 rectangles of 280x40px from bottom to top. Then apply to them the next gradient overlay:

Arrange the rectangles exactly like in the image, from bottom to top. The remaining space between header and content will be for days(sun, mon, tue, wed, thu, fri and sat, exactly like on any calendar).

Now, make use of Guides and them at every 40px, so we may add some days inside them. To measure exactly 40px, you can use Ruler Tool(I).

Step 7: Delimit Rows & Columns

Now delimit each rectangle by drawing some horizontal and vertical lines of 1px using the Line Tool(U), darker and lighter to create a nice overall effect.

Start with vertical white lines and draw them 1px right to vertical guide:

Continue with horizontal white lines and draw them 1px under horizontal guide:

Add horizontal dark-gray(#c5c5c5) lines above each horizontal guide:

Finish with vertical gray lines by drawing them left to each vertical guide.

You should obtain nice rectangles delimited by lines:

Step 8: Add Weeks in Calendar

Now, above the rectangles, inside that white empty space, add each day of the week:

Step 9: Add Days in Calendar

Inside each small rectangle, add days from 1-31, but make sure to take into account the relation between each number and day. For example, 1st of august 2011 is Monday.

Step 10: Reduce Opacity of Inactive Days

I added inactive days as well, like 31 of July and 1,2 and 3 of September because they fits into calendar but I highlighted them. Draw a white rectangle over each inactive box and reduce its opacity to 50%. This way you’ll obtain clean inactive days.

Step 11: Highlight Current Day

The current day should be highlighted too, but in a different way. Choose a day you want to make it current, draw a rectangle of 39x40px and position it like in the image(starting from top-left corner). Color it in orange(#da603b) and add to it a 1px stroke(#7a2d16). The final rectangle should fall over dark-gray lines.

Step 12: Add Events

Now we’ll add a final touch. As any serious application calendar widget, our calendar should show days with events or tasks. Therefore, let’s add a day which has events assigned.

With Pen Tool(P), draw a small triangle of 7x7px, starting from top-left corner of a box, then color it in the same orange used for current day(#da603b).

With this last touch, our calendar widget is designed and ready to be coded for an admin panel of a fancy web application.

Final Result

Here is what we crafted finally.

Hope you enjoyed designing calendar along with me. Do you think adding something will make it more effective? We are hearing, do suggest us.

Download The .PSD File

The .PSD is released under GPL. You can use it for all your projects for free and without any restrictions.

• Download .PSD File (.zip, 2.8 MB)

Under these circumstances, enhancing pictures with human subjects became degrading, many people considering the artists making these retouches aresomehow selling fake dreams. People must revise this opinion. A better understanding of their work will make everything clearer and the specialists doing these won’t be considered as a “paria” of the design world.

Retouching photos is one of the most difficult job to do for any designer: while creating layouts depends on some objective factors, modifying an image is totally a subjective task and it’s impossible to satisfy all tastes. This situation makes the specialists consider the retouching of pictures more as a new kind of art than a normal passion of the Photoshop lovers.

From this perspective, the models from the covers magazine aren’t just a marketing tool,they are the human perfection imagined by a designer. When the attempt to reproduce the perfection consists only in making the breast looking better it is a shame, and yes, these pictures must be avoided and ignored. The improving of the images that are taken from a bad perspective or have some imperfections is also the appanage of the designers interested in retouching activities. It’s nice to have some pictures from your weeding improved, to reflect the entire beauty of the bride even if the initial shoot wasn’t realized very professional.

The amazing portfolios of the designers passionate of improving images are the best proof that demonstratesthat special skills and a lot of work are required but the final results are nothing more than real miracles.

A special category of improving images is the one where human subjects are presented, as it is mentioned previously, it’s a very debated topic. In spite of the negative aspects, I prefer to show you a method to apply when dealing with these tasks. Being such a complex matter, there is no clear formula to apply, everything depends of the style of each one but this algorithm works for me, and it’s inspired from the advices of the best photo retouchers. Much more, when working for a client’s project, he has a word to say, hence the situation is pretty difficult but also it’s a nice challenge for any designer.

1. Study careful the picture

Pay attention to the size and the subject, identify clearly the directions to take action.

Let’s suppose that you have in front of you the digital file to modify. Before starting to modify any picture it’s highly recommended not to neglect this part, the one of “mediting” about the necessity of the modifications and how will look the final image. In this stage is important to consult with the client, if it’s the case, and debate about his perspective. It’s true that apparently there is nothing to do, but it’s quite important to have a good start.

2. Write on a paper or make a copy of the picture to note the modifications to make

The normal consequence of the previous step is to take into consideration the decisions made. I propose you two different ways to realize this:

• The classic version, take a pen and a paper and write what you need to modify. I save a lot of time when these notations are in a logical order and not randomly.
• The more effective way, by using Adobe Photoshop or any similar alternatives you simply duplicate the layer and write on it. I recommend using Pencil tool or a very small brush. Don’t be scarred about the multiple modifications, be optimist, it’s mandatory in order to evolve.

Depending on the deadlines you have, I prefer to take small breaks between these stages, I called this pause “the time to breathe for brain and inspiration” (not very inspired but it fully reflects the reality).

3. Organize in your head the image of the final result

I have another secret that sometimes really produces miracles: I work on two almost separated projects. One is the file that must have as result the picture imaged together with the client or the one established in the first step and one that has no limitations, along the work on the file I have various ideas in my mind and sometimes I followthese. Definitely, the first item must be presented to the clients but as long as the alternatives files are interesting, these may be considered as an extra option.

4. Start working with the “destructive” tools-Liquify and so on

Now, you effectively start the work of retouch. Before delving deeper into the problem keep in mind these advices:

• Name your files properly and have them grouped to the regions affected or effects. A complete work may contain more than one hundred layers and it’s impossible to know what is affecting each one without a good naming of them. By grouping them it is easier to know if the cumulated effect is positive, you must change the opacity, add a new layer etc.
• Don’t expect to do something in just few minutes, a professional retouch requires many hours of hard work and many times, what was considered good few hours ago, at the present seems foolish. A very good realization means many come-backs, lots of frustrations but the patience is the key element.
• A good retoucher applies a very simple method, the one of the small steps. It’s impossible to create a good work by modifying large areas, small steps must be taken very and once the result is good at this scale, you must zoom out to see the big picture. Never, but never consider that if the image looks fine at his normal size, when zooming to let’s say 200% it would look fine too. (the vice-versa is also true).
• A good result doesn’t mean very big modifications, it is about making better or perfect the respective project and nothing more.

When you open the image to modify in Adobe Photoshop or any other software the first idea must be to the plan you just created previously and how the final work should look. Immediately, create a working scenario: a wise designer starts with the effects that destruct the image (obviously, you must create a duplicate to work on and keep the original to see the actions). “Liquify” is quite probable the most used tool and all the actions that implies it must be done in the first layers. Once these are finished, the best method is to work from big to small scale. More pragmatically, is recommended to pay attention to the background (where is the case) then to the subject. By consulting the initial guide, the zones where it is necessary to bring the modifications are identified and, by patience, these are corrected step-by-step.

Not in the end, the lights and color improvements may really create miracles and these may be easily modified again and again.

5. Work with the body-if is necessary

It all depends on the picture to modify, but there are few ideas when in the image iscentered on the body of someone. The most common mistake is to exaggerate with some features, i.e. the arm is very muscled but the face is one of an obese or a skinny guy. Clearly, this aspect must be treated very carefully.

Another problem related to the body work is related to the skin. An amateurish approach is to have different nuances of skin color which is wrong and instantly is remarked by an experienced eye. The problem won’t be so difficult but it’s impossible not to have the lights that must be taken into account. Therefore, even if the advice is unclear and maybe annoying, the best idea is to imagine, as much as you can, the subject in a natural environment.

A specialist to be in retouching images will archive on his hard-drive various nuances of skin, from Afro to Caucasian types and in this way, the matter of skin color is simplified but, by far, not resolved.

Very precious tip: it took me a long time to realize it but it is very important. If you really care about your future as creative retoucher then it is mandatory to establish a database with various items as brushes, actions, shapes, tutorials, videos etc that will be priceless when effective working. I have special folders on my hard drive and when I find something interesting (and free) I instantly bookmark the address and download the materials. You don’t know when these may be utile for future projects and the space occupied is ignorable.

6. The face- “the last frontier”

If the problem of the body is still reasonable because it, usually, doesn’t contain a huge density of items to modify and the surface is pretty big, the face is the real headache. The face contains the forehead, the eyebrows, the eyes, the nose, mouth and chin (nothing new, isn’t it?) but all these occupy a small area, therefore zooming becomes mandatory.

In a natural way, people have the tendency to admire the face so there is another reason to pay tenfold attention to it. When working with faces I recommend the same process: start with destructive effects, there is almost no retouch that I don’t use “Liquify” tool. Then, select a direction, up and down or inverse and effectively work on the parts that need improvements.

Paradoxically, there is respected the rule of 80%: any project needs 80% from the time to complete 20% from it and the same is happening here. The face is a very complex item and there is no surprise to “waste” here the most time. Usually in this stage I prefer to work 50-60 minutes and 10-15 minutes complete break. Of course, it is related to the deadline but when you are able to respect this pattern, be confident and try it.

7. Pay attention to the eyes

If the face is the most difficult part from the retouch process, then the eyes are the most challenging items on the face. Apparently, too small to be noticed, they speak a lot about any person and any viewer is interested in interpreting their message. An unclear message or a strange sight doesn’t satisfy the viewers and subconsciously wouldn’t like the picture.

The conclusion is simple: no matter how small they are, the eyes reveal the professionalism of the designer that modifies the images.

8. In any conditions the light and colors may help a lot

The common mentality is that retouching meansmodifying deeply the images but in fact there is more: no matter how, the images must look fine. A good designer will be very careful to the lights and colors, more than a beginner that is preoccupied mostly by powerful changes. I don’t say that it is wrong, but a lot of good things may be realized by using more efficiently the bynom light-color.

9. Bigger modifications don’t equal better results

I made references to this idea but I considered that is necessarily to emphasize it once again. There are projects and projects, each one has its own specificity but when the situation allows, don’t try to get better results by making huge modifications, a great designer must retouch a photo by using fewer actions.

Therefore, by reaching this point it’s quite probable that you are interested in this fantastic type of modern art but there are many other aspects that, in order to get clients or, why not, make a living from should be avowed.

1. There are no shortcuts

   The Internet is full of amazing stories, from websites that crashed the servers immediately after launching or by instantly successful social networks and people influenced by these stories won’t have the patience to accomplish a task. The same situation is here, to become a real professional it’s required tons of finished projects and, 100% sure, there aren’t shortcuts. Briefly, work hard and don’t expect fast outcrops.

2. Be very passionate or forget it

   Very frequent at the beginning of the carries, the many difficulties may make the wannabeswant to quit. Probably, by reading the post, you observed that I used the noun “patience” very often so I am sure that you deduced that it works here too. A strong will and a great passion are the winning combination.

3. Tutorials, blogs and inspirational showcases are the best help

   In the field of retouching, the trends change more frequently and the designers must be very flexible to them. Under these circumstances, don’t worry. If you are the best today, surely tomorrow will be another no.1 designer; nobody can adapt to the tastes of everyone. In spite of this situation, the self-preparation is mandatory. The tutorials are quite useful and each passionate-about should have a list of cool bookmarks with the best tutorials. The specific of retouching is that the “written” tutorials aren’t very practical, the video format being more utilized and useful. The bad part is that, the quality ones require paying an amount of money (from my experience the money invested are a gain and not a loss). YouTube or other video sharing websites offer many tutorials and, sometimes these are really pro made.

   These are very helpful to sharpen your skills but there is another factor that is many times ignored: where to get your inspiration… you have the potential to realize something cool but without it, you can’t start working! The best solution to get inspiration is to admire the works of other people involved in the field. I almost hate myself because I sometimes spend too much time viewing other people’s portfolios but this activity inspires me very much. Try it and let me know if you enjoy it!

4. Create a portfolio

   A portfolio is the next step in the evolution. When someone is passionate about this and wants to get clients the need to modify some images it is mandatory. Two aspects are capital in having a portfolio that attracts people and converts them into clients: the respective website must be optimized for the right keywords and the works exposed should be very creative and have a high quality. Yep, it’s so simple to write but so hard to put it into practice.

Finally, I wish you good look in your attempting to become a professional photo retoucher and don’t be shy, if you have any problem, feel free to contact me. By far, I am a modest designer but anyway, a new idea is better than nothing.

Image Credits

• High-Speed Retouching

Since the advent of the social internet, gone are the days when seeking advice required thorough investigation of forums, IRC channels, and databases. Now, we have the power to ask anyone, anywhere anything, anytime by using crowdsourcing question and answer tools. Crowdsourcing Q&A tools have been around since at least 1999; however, as the socially collaborative internet has evolved, crowdsourcing Q&A sites have become increasingly popular and useful as both new and existing tools have begun granulating into serving specific information niches – in other words, you are going to get more answers from more people who are specifically interested in what you’re trying to find out.

If you’ve thought about using crowdsourcing Q&A tools, don’t hesitate! These tools are powerful communication channels that allow you to use the collective brainpower of people from all different walks life, providing you unique & unexpected insight into your most pressing issues. This guide to crowdsourcing Q&A tools will help you decide which platform will best suit your needs and interests, while connecting you to the right audience for your questions (or answers!)

All Our Ideas

All Our Ideas is a crowdsourcing tool that you can implement as a standalone website to get collaborate feedback, answers to questions, and suggestions from users. All Our Ideas is a beautiful and simple tool (akin to the heavily marketed “Face/Off” web app, from Spigit) that enables groups to collect and prioritize ideas from the bottom up.

All Our Ideas format is elegantly simple and very effective – your question is posted above two ideas going head to head for priorization. This allows users to quickly choose which ideas are most useful. Users can also add their own ideas. The only drawback to All Our Ideas is that it doesn’t have a community that supports it – it’s meant to be used as a tool for polling your existing contacts and collaborators as opposed to presenting your questions and ideas to a large userbase.

Quora

Quora is a crowdsourcing tool to answer your questions. When you post a question to Quora, it creates a page that allows anyone to answer and discuss your question. Due to Quora’s quick growth, many questions have already been asked and answered by people with first hand experience.

Whether you’re a technologist, designer, doctor, economist, screen writer, police officer, or any other profession, Quora aims to be the easiest place for you to connect people to your questions and topics. Quora also offers a feature called “Boards,” which allow you to post anything you would like to share or glean answers about in one central repository. You can follow people’s boards, and add people as contributors to your own boards for collaborative projects.

Stack Exchange

Stack Exchange is an amalgamation of 85 technical and professional crowdsourcing question and answer sites. Stack Exchange differs from most crowdsourced Q&A sites becuase it is a network of individual communities edicated to serving experts in each field as opposed to an open forum. Stack Exchange has grown at a rapid pace since its launch.

Stack Exchange focuses on ratings and rankings for questions – when a question is useful, it’s voted up against other less clean or productive questions. The more votes your question gets, the better answer you get. Stack Exchange isn’t the place for conversation, opinions, or socializing – it’s a place for clear and specifc answers to real problems that you face. Stack Exchange originated from a site called Stack Overflow, a crowdsourced community Q&A site specifically for computer programmers to be able to help each other with technical issues.

LinkedIn Answers

LinkedIn Answers is the professional network’s answer to crowdsourced question and answer exchange. LinkedIn Answers is geared toward a strictly professional crowd, including IT, tech, & business. The nice thing about LinkedIn Answers is that you know that you are dealing with professionals – or at least people who care enough about their professional appearance to have a LinekdIn account.

LinkedIn Answers is also a great way for you to connect with other professionals and gain clout among your network by engaging people with questions and answers to pertinent business, tech, or strategy problems that they face. You can make yourself known on LinkedIn very easily by participating in Answers; when you post a question, it’s posted on the Answers front page, your profile, on the LinkedIn homepage of your connections, and over email. You can also choose to ask questions privately.

Yahoo Answers

Yahoo Answers has been the defacto crowdsourcing tool for average internet users to ask or answer just about any kind of question. While useful, Yahoo answers is clouded with millions of questions and answers on many subjects – and there definitely isn’t the air of professionalism or quality to the answers (or the questions) that you find on other crowdsourcing Q&A sites.

Yahoo Answers has been the butt of many an internet joke as well, due to users posting unbelievable (but probably real) questions, like the one above this sentence.

FormSpring

FormSpring is a social network for asking and answering questions. You can easily follow other users & brands, and ask and answer questions from them. Formspring is geared toward a more mass audience, as opposed to a more niche, professional tool like Quora. With Formspring, you’re much more likely to find “fun” or “entertaining” questions, as well as certain brands and “celebrity” users that people follow.

Formspring also allows you to post what you would like to be asked about – for example, you could say that you wanted to answer questions about crowdsourcing tools for answering questions. Overall, Formspring is a great way to ask general, lifestyle, and entertainment questions to people who use the site, or use the service as a platform to launch questions for your friends on Facebook or Twitter. In the end, Formspring is a neat tool to ask people questions – just don’t expect to get very professional answers.

ChaCha

ChaCha is a very interesting crowdsourcing platform for answering questions – ChaCha is mainly run by advertisers and marketers, which positions ChaCha as a place to connect with brands. However, what makes ChaCha even more interesting is that ChaCha allows the average user to become a “ChaCha Guide,” a paid contractor who gets small sums of money for answering questions. While ChaCha is a great tool to get just about any question answered by a real person (some of the answers are automatically generated – for those that aren’t, that’s when a guide will get your question and respond to you). There is a heavy bias as to what kind of questions get asked on ChaCha, due to their user base (hint: young or bored) – take a look at the top ChaCha questions for the month:

In the end, ChaCha is a very unique service that allows you to quickly find answers to questions, and connect with real people who can help you find answers if the web service is unable to. ChaCha is chock-full of marketers and advertisers – but again, that is the part of the nature of ChaCha – to connect people’s questions to brands.

AnswerBag

AnswerBag is a crowdsourcing site for answering and asking questions that prides itself on neutrality. The cool blue theme of the site and unobtrusive buttons and content lend for a very direct, quick question asking and answering experience across a wide range of topics. Answerbag sits right in the middle of other services like Formspring (entertainment) and Quora (professional / technical). Simplicity is the key to AnswerBag – and it works.

Answerbag provides a great online community to crowdsource answers to your questions, as well as give you an opportunity to answer questions. One of the best things about answer crowdsourcing is that it provides you a direct engagement channel to anyone who answers your questions, or to anyone whos questions you answer – asking and answering questions is actually a great way to promote your brand by being honest and engaging with online communities.

Answers.com

Answers.com isn’t just a tool for crowdsourcing answers, although it accomplishes that very well – it’s also a platform that retrieves answers to your questions from a vast repository of hundreds of respected and trusted editorial reference books. Answers.com is broken down into several sections: Answers.com, the main site, is for asking and answering questions. WikiAnswers is for specific, unique, complex, or social questions, and aims to deliver to the point answers for questions instead of general discussion. ReferenceAnswers is the supply of editorial sources that Answers.com maintains – mainly for who-is or what-is factually related questions.

In addition to the wealth of community and reference resources that Answers.com provides, they also provide access to video answers. Video Answers has over 200,000 videos in 200 categories, making it easy to find instructional and informative videos about questions you have.

LockerGnome.net

LockerGnome.net is a crowdsourced community question and answer platform specific to the IT / Tech industry. Lockergnome focuses on commenting and voting to bring questions to the top – the more votes and comments, the more visible the question is. Lockergnome is moderated by its users – moderation rights are gradually assigned to members based on their “reputation.” Users gain points and authority to moderate and modify questions based on how much they participate.

Amazon Askville

Amazon Askville is a crowdsourced Q&A platform from Amazon. There isn’t anything particularly special about it, and it’s been flying under the rader since 2006. But, it’s still a full featured Q&A tool that recieves regular submissions (every minute, even.)

Recommended Reading

In addition to the wealth of crowdsourced question and answer platforms that exist by themselves, there are also Q&A tools built into existing networks like Facebook and Google+.

David Pogue (if you don’t know David, he’s the New York Times technology columnist, and also a major voice on the web regarding the state of technology) wrote a great article for Scientific American in 2010 about the advent of information crowdsourcing, highlighting services like ChaCha, Yahoo Answers, and (the now defunct) Aardvark. David provides a great perspective as to why and how people are using information crowdsourcing tools, and how to determine which tools are the best for your personal use. Although the article comes from 2010, David’s judicious analyses of the subject is still very relevant.

Wired Magazine‘s Gary Rivlin published a fantastic in-depth analyses and interview with the founders of Quora which highlights many of the issues facing the crowdsourced Q&A industry. Gary reports that many of the crowdsourced Q&A sites are facing a big issue – quality – in that so many users are signing up for Q&A services that it becomes hard to keep the good, relevant questions visible because there are too many unrelated or irrelevant questions and answers being submitted.

Conclusion

Crowdsourcing answers to your questions & answering questions from the crowd is an extremely effective way to gain insights, advice, and new strategies & techniques. Crowdsourcing answers allows you to engage with like minded individuals in your field – whether they be industry professional, business contacts, sales leads, or just the general public – and use their brainpower to your advantage. In addition to the advantages that you personally glean from having crowds answer your questions, you gain clout and recognition by providing your own expertise in answering questions.

In the end, crowdsourcing answers is a great way to connect with new minds, glean new insights, and promote yourself with your own knowledge and skills. No matter what questions you have or knowledge you want to share, there is a platform for you that will allow you to use the power of crowdsourcing to engage people of all walks of life in a highly conversational and interactive way.

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Introduction

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About the prizes

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Customers are bombarded with messages from various newspapers, TV channels etc. It is quiet natural for a typical consumer to be exposed to the same brand’s message, through the newspaper, radio jingles and the outdoor hoardings.

The only mantra that firms earlier seemed to believe was to create a presence wherever possible to ensure that customers were exposed to the message and it helped the ‘top of mind recall’ for the brand. This probably further helped to generate an intention culminating in purchase of product or service. However, in social media, no matter on how many social media channels a firm creates its presence; it’s the end customer who decides whether he/she wants to “follow” the brand on that particular channel.

The customer’s power to be selective in receiving the messuge has increased considerably compared to the earlier firm’s message broadcasting power. Moreover, the social media industry is also competitive enough, i.e. each social media channel is competing with the other to gain as many unique users as possible. One may relate the social media industry to a TV industry where there are multiple TV channels which can be classified into groups – news, songs, movies, family series, reality shows etc. Each group, more or less broadcasts the same kind of programs targeted to a particular audience with similar interests. Similarly, the various special media channels are offering unique value propositions (like relationships, photos, videos, documents, bookmarks, etc.) which need to be mapped with a firm’s objective to go social.

Almost any firm on a given day would be having presence on any one of the traditional media. So the big question a firm needs to answer is “Why should I go for social media, when i am already spending huge money on other media?” If a firm just embarks on a social media campaign because its competitors are doing it, or it’s a ‘trend’ and Therefore had to be followed, it may lead to a disaster. If this social media strategy is not well thought, it might result in an extremely risky situation. It needs to be clearly understood that unlike other media channels where you can stop advertising or remove banners, any content floated on social media may remain on the web for lifelong. So, even if firms stop using it, people and competitors can dig it somehow and may misuse it, creating problems for the brand.

It’s therefore emphasized, that before using social media, firms need to have a clear strategy and a well thought out plan on what are they expecting to achieve through social media. The purpose could be varied – to engage with customers, to source new ideas from customers, to create brand image, to fuel word of mouth of a lesser known brand, to raise funds for a cause etc. Unless a firm has framed its strategy it won’t be worthwhile to go with social media.

What are the risks involved?

Customers

It is very common that when firms make a move like launching a new marketing campaign, it creates lot of expectations in the customer’s mind. So, It won’t be wise to create a social media presence and later on not participate or engage with customers. The fact needs to be realized that a firm won’t be able to control all the conversations, which customers have about their brand. Also it wouldn’t be always a red carpet welcome for the brands, when they enter social media. It might turn nightmarish, if customers start venting out their anger and their bad experiences with the brand. The firm should be well prepared to tackle customer feedback. There should be a well-framed strategy to handle all queries and pacify the customers at the earliest to avoid any further damage. Active engagement should be done to ensure that this risk of not meeting customer expectations is minimized.

Employees

The second source of risk would be internal to the firm – employees. The employees might be either reluctant to support social media, due to their myopic view on social media strategy or might happily adopt it and see it as an entertainment activity rather than professional activity and cause damage to their productivity.

The first issue (reluctance) could be easily tackled with adequate and appropriate briefing, but the second issue (performance) needs to be carefully handled. Some firms might think that only certain people should be allowed access to these social media sites and others not, well on paper it might look a rational decision, however in practice it might create a rift between the two set of employees. This entire phenomenon is dependent on a trust building exercise. A firm needs to trust its employees and employees shouldn’t let the firm down. This would take time, but gradually it would be possible to bridge the gap. Sensitizing (by way of briefing/training) and trust building can be the key factors in mitigating this risk.

Support

The customer may pose query on any aspect of the brand – installation, usage, repeat purchase, financing, pending order, promotions etc on the social media channel. The person who is handling the community (commonly known as ‘community manager’) needs to be connected with every other department. There should be continuous interaction facility between the online community manager and the functional mangers/departments so that he can extract information at his requirement and use it to engage customers.

Standard Operating Procedure needs to be worked out while contacting the different departments when needed. This will set a clear chain of communication and ensure the faster and adept response. Also, it will help tackle the odd cases when the online community manager is not clear about which department to contact for a query when a query which involves more than one department. The risk of an inadequate support can Therefore be tackled by working out the various cases possible and having a process centric approach.

How much should a firm open up?

Firms should be crystal clear about how much information they are going to share about their brand and firm while formulating their social media strategy. A note should be taken of the fact that even competitors might be following your brand closely and monitoring all the conversations you have with your customers. So, when you receive some queries from enthusiastic customers about your new product launches, the firm should decide to what extent the details will be shared. It might be a competitively dangerous move if some information is shared which gives intelligence to your competitor about something (may be a product feature) which your firm wants to keep confidential. In another case, if the firm is small and privately held, some stakeholders might be eager to know about your business model or your performance. You may not disclose the entire information and at the same time, it won’t be wise to avoid answering those queries outright. It would require creativity to adequately handle the queries where you cannot share the information and at the same time not let the anger prevail from your customer who raises it. Therefore this risk could be addressed by thinking through well about the information that can be shared on an open channel and clear cut instructions need to be given to the online community manager.

Should firm outsource or have an internal team?

This will be a crucial question for many firms. Firms that are outsourcing may cite one of the key reasons as being unaware of how to manage the firm’s account on social media. Ideally, firms should have an in-house team to manage their social media activity. This is to ensure that a dedicated pool of resources is continuously working on maintaining firm’s social media presence, who develop an in-depth knowledge about the firm’s products and services. There is a lot of learning which will take place as time progresses and this dedicated pool which be adept to resolve complicated issues at a faster pace over a period of time.

Even if firms outsource the activity to any agency, firms need to ensure that they have good communication and co-ordination with the agency on a regular basis. The one key aspect of social media communication is the promptness with which the customer is attended. It may happen that when firm’s account on social media is handled by an agency, it is actually handled by a community manager who most often handles more than one brand at a time. In such a situation, one of the challenges faced is that the interaction with community members is not an instant activity. It needs to be done on a continuous basis. If a community member poses a query, which the ‘multi-tasking’ community manager couldn’t reply instantly, due to lack of knowledge on that query, it may lead to a dent in brand’s image.

The tough part in outsourcing the activity is to maintain ‘seamless’ communication between the agency and the firm. There are tools available in the market which might assist in the journey, however at the end of the day, only the mother knows better what a child needs and not the day-care aunty! This needs to be realized, sensed by the firm. Firms might think it would be difficult for brand managers to interact with customers when they have other responsibilities to handle. The answer to this would be – change in roles and responsibilities of the brand manager. Probably have an additional brand manager who would maintain the online branding activity, but is in close association with the main brand manager. The risk o mismanaging due to outsourcing is to make sure that the terms and conditions are outlined clearly to the outsourcing firm and the communication process should have well defined SLAs (Service Level Agreement) in place.

Which social media channels should the firm be present on?

Given the hundreds of social media channels presence, it is always going to be a tough choice for firms to decide where to create their presence. However, the key parameters which could be used to reach an optimum decision are listed below:

• Deciding their target audience: Before deciding on the social media channel, it is important to be clear about the target audience. The social media channel should be suited to the likes and interests of this particular target audience. The social media channel should be popular amongst this target audience and also should be prominent in that part of geography where the firm intends to target. Not all social media channels are used universally. For instance, Linkedin is considered to be very prominent in India, while Xing is very popular in countries like Germany, Spain, Portugal etc.. Similarly QQ is a famous social networking channel in China, in spite of the Facebook’s dominance across the globe. Next to the geographical presence, firms should evaluate the type of target audience who are member of these channels.
• Value proposition: Value proposition to be offered by the firm. A simple criterion could be informal vs. formal. Firms should appreciate the fact that certain social media channels do have a very professional image, wherein only formal discussions would yield results and not the informal ones.
• Features/positioning of the social media channel: Not all social media channels offer range of features. Every channel has its own differentiation and certain key features of engagement are unique to that particular channel. For example videos for YouTube and Vimeo; presentations and documents for Slideshare and Docstoc; short messages (140 characters) for Twitter, photos for Flicker; music for MySpace etc. Depending on which is a suitable format (mode ,format, length etc) of communication appropriate social media channel needs to be chosen.
• Content generation process: The decision is to determine what type of content could the firm generate on a sustainable basis to ensure sufficient customer engagement? This content could be generated from within the firm or in some instances be sourced from professional content writers. The frequency of the posts should be maintained to keep the readers (customers) engaged.
• Uniform Messaging: It’s extremely important to ensure that the consistent message is delivered across all channels. Hence, key features across the prospective social media channels should be identified on which the firm seeks to create presence and modify their content generation accordingly ensuring that the message that the firm wants to deliver is the same across channels and the consumer does not get confused.

What art the key factors in ensuring an effective communication?

With reference to the fact that social media is not a broadcasting medium firms should devote due efforts to listen. In this interaction medium there may be suggestions, complaints, and appreciations about the firm/brand on the social media. Even though the firm may not have presence on any of the social media channels, people on the media may be discussing about their brand/firm. Firms should first try to have a sense of all those conversations and understand on what aspects are customers discussing about their brand. This would help them in positioning their social media strategy. Also, after having created the presence on social media channels, firms should regularly direct efforts towards listening. This could be facilitated with use of various tools available in the market, but should be practiced religiously.

How do I measure effectiveness?

After creating presence on appropriate social media channel. firms would be eager to judge the efficiency of a particular channel. However, judging the efficiency of a particular channel in generating engagement with customers is a tough task. It is not as simple as pagerank or number of hits received in the SEO domain. In this domain, what matters is the extent of engagement a firm is able to build with its customers and more importantly sustain it over a period of time to reap long term results.

It is very common in the industry for agencies to charge firms on number of fans/community members accomplished on the brand community, number of likes received; number of comments made by community members, number of times the content was shared further by the community members, no. of times the content was downloaded etc. Agencies use these tangible criteria to pacify firm about their social media efforts. However, firms lose the ultimate target of the social media activity, i.e. ‘engagement’ and ‘connect with the customer’. Social media is a powerful medium to have two-way interaction with the customers and ‘positively influencing’ them should be the primary output of implementing the Social Media Strategy.

Image Credits

• Social media mind map
• Road signs at the end of the road